Java Development News:

Good time for JCP to recalibrate?

Now that its acquisition of Sun Microsystems is old news, Oracle must assume its new position as
the major sponsor of the Java programming language. Tony de la Lama, SVP of research and
development at Embarcadero Technologies, said it is a good time for the Java Community Process
(JCP) to lay everything on the table and evaluate what has worked and what has not. From 2000 to
2003, de la Lama was a founding executive committee member at the JCP. He said competing interests
between commercial vendors tended to slow down developments through the years.

“IBM saw the value of the platform immediately and came in participate, as did Oracle,” said de
la Lama. “At the JCP level those were the two elephants in the room that were wrestling most of the
time, along with Sun. It was fun to watch but it made things slower.”

Oracle, by and large, is a very pragmatic company said de la Lama. His impression is that Java
is still too hard to use and needs better supporting tooling while remaining open. From
conversations he has had with Oracle, he said, the company seems to understand this.

“They know that Java has to remain open,” said de la Lama. “They would have liked if it had been
more open and this is their chance to really make that happen.”

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